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This article was first published in 2001.
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The Lancer Evo VI is a hard car to categorise. It costs eighty grand - but doesn't have climate control, a CD stacker or even leather. It's being sold mainly through Mitsubishi dealerships - but it wasn't imported or even complied by Mitsubishi. The car looks extravagantly superb - until you peer closely to find the rear flares held on with clips and hot-melt glue, and the inner doors exposing spot welds and paint drips. There's no other car on the road that costs even one-quarter of this purchase price that is noisier or has worse vibration fed through the pedals and steering wheel. And the way that the huge rear bi-plane wing wobbles from side to side, you feel it's only a matter of time before it breaks right off...
In fact, at idle in the carpark, the Lancer Evo is utterly unimpressive. Sure you can eyeball the huge red Brembo calipers front and rear - each clamping an enormous ventilated disc - but under the bonnet there's not a lot of excitement. No multiple throttles, no variable cam timing - even the intercooler with its pressed metal end-tanks looks unexciting.
And the interior is just bare-bones-econo-car with bolt-ons - the Recaro seats, leather Momo wheel and gearknob do little to distract from the generic base-model Mitsubishi HVAC controls and incomplete instrumentation. In fact, to zero in on the build quality of the car, all you need do is pull on the handbrake - a plasticy, imprecise lever that ratchets up about a dozen notches before any retardation is felt. It would be quite at home in an $11,000 Korean...
Rev the turbo-and-intercooled 206kW DOHC 2-litre and a threshy, metallic noise fills the air - there's zilch that's seductively thrilling about it. Even when sitting in the driver's seat and playing with the gearknob, nothing gels - it's a stiff, clunky movement, short in throw but without the precise, mechanical and sweet movement that you expect.
No, to find out why the Lancer Evolution VI Tommi Makinen is one of the most awesome cars on the road, you've gotta drive it. Hard.
The clutch is progressive and its engagement point easy to find. The engine needs a few revs off the line - with its lack of absolute bottom-end torque and lumpy idle, it feels quite cammy - then the car moves away smoothly. Floor it in first and when revs hit just under three grand, all hell breaks loose. The 373Nm mid-range of this engine is just absolutely unbelievable. Even if you're used to fast road cars, the way that the 1280kg Evo just screams from three thousand to six thousand rpm defies belief. With the short, short gearing (try 4.529 diffs!) it's only a matter of a few moments before you're reaching for second.
The box can be slammed from gear to gear - it's nearly impossible to beat the synchros. Pull second gear and the needle's back into territory where the titanium turbo simply hurls the car forward. Hold second past six thousand to seven thousand rpm, then seven-and-a-half (the soft limiter is at 7600 rpm) and the metallic scream of the engine drowns out the bellowing induction noise. Into third and the car just keeps launching for the horizon, reeling it in at a rate which literally requires that you take your concentration to another plane. Grab fourth and stare f-a-r ahead, watching out of the corner of your eye for the tacho to reach 7000 rpm, then pulling the lever across into fifth - and putting both hands back on the wheel...
The Lancer would be an absolute ball-tearer just for the way it goes in a straight-line - but that aspect is a relatively minor part of its armoury. In fact, the critical could say that the top-end of the power band is actually a touch weak - short-change at six thousand and the car feels much better, the extra loading on the turbo winding it up to speed almost immediately, and that fantastic mid-range torque again instantly on tap. If it continued to go as hard right to the rev limit as it does between three and six thousand revs, it'd probably do mid-twelves across the quarter mile rather than mid-thirteens.
But what cannot be criticised is the Lancer's cornering ability. Riding on old-model Bridgestone S0-1 rubber, the Evo corners like a cat on carpet - every tyre can be felt clawing at the road, the sophisticated and accomplished four-wheel drive system apportioning torque not only front/back, but also at the rear from side to side. Does it work? Does it ever!
Enter a corner at a speed that would see an (old model) Impreza WRX STi understeering across the road and the Evo just digs in, following the chosen line precisely. Get on the power too hard before the apex and it will join the constant four-wheel drive school of understeer. But instead of tromping on that oh-so-powerful loud pedal, feed in the power with a degree of subtlety. Then early in the corner the car is balanced and quick and poised. But get to the apex and you can forget such gentleness - in almost any dry road situation, the Evo will accept full throttle from the corner's mid-point.
And it's what happens then that is simply so breathtaking. For a moment you'll be able to feel the understeer increase - and you can be forgiven for thinking that the story's over. But when the four-wheel drive system detects what's happening, the Active Yaw Control rear diff takes over, apportioning more torque to the outside rear wheel.
And, suddenly, the Evo's not understeering anymore...
Instead, it's simply exiting the corner with adhesion and traction and stability and sheer bloody speed which is almost beyond comprehension. Sometimes there's a touch of power oversteer, sometimes there's a touch of power understeer - but usually, there's just nothing but sheer, unadulterated neutral cornering acceleration.
If you're in that ballistic mid-range you'll find yourself at the next corner faster than you literally believed possible - then you can jump on the anchors which pull you down effortlessly, time and time again.
The ability to exit corners like a bullet from a gun - then stop like that same bullet hitting armour plate - forces you to re-evaluate your favourite drivers' roads. What you thought was a series of corners joined by short straights - where in other cars you can treat those bends as separate entities - becomes one continuous stretch of fast blacktop. Sure, you can point and squirt, but the satisfaction comes in getting a flow going - and what a flow! Like a torrent rushing down a mountain, the Evo redefines the geography that you're traversing... What sharp corner? What hill? What brake-punishing descent?
Driven along a winding country road sprinkled with 40 and 60 and 80 km/h advisories, the Evo is astonishingly capable. And not just on smooth bitumen, either. Even when cornered hard on bumpy and broken tar, the Lancer stays on track, its 225/45 17s following the chosen path. It takes a huge bump to kick the tail out - and even then it's of only academic interest because the lateral movement's so small that no correction is needed. In fact, even when there are traces of understeer or oversteer, effectively the driver doesn't have to do much about it. Just aiming where you want to go - and sometimes modulating the right-foot pedal - is enough.
But you'd better aim carefully..... the steering is razor sharp. With just over two turns lock to lock, looking at the paper spec you could be forgiven for thinking that you're gonna be driving a kart. But the Lancer's overly large turning circle has the effect of slowing the ratio. Even so, the steering is rapid, and with that lack of turn-in understeer, first-time drivers invariably find themselves having to unwind some of the initial bite. Not that this sudden and late change of direction ever seems to unsettle the car - it's incredibly nimble. But the steering does have a problem - or perhaps the blame can be placed on the tyres. The Evo VI is prone to tramlining - and that can get a mite dangerous when you're travelling really fast.
Take a real-life example: passing a long truck. You change back to third gear, pull out and floor the throttle - you'll need to change to fourth gear when you're alongside the truck. That's no problem - but if the front wheels meet some longitudinal grooves in the road at the same time, it can get diabolical. Moving the steering wheel just a few millimetres is enough to correct the car - but doing that one-handed and apportioning exactly the right steering input is dangerously difficult. One of two things needs to be done: either change the tyres so that there's less tramlining, or slow the steering ratio a little. Given that the steering is damn-near perfect in every other situation, we'd be looking at the tyres....
So is this an awesome car or what?
W-e-l-l, it's a fantastic car for an automotive journalist to have for a week - but what about for an owner?
Then it's a much more problematic judgment. For while this is an expensive car, it's one very obviously based on a cheap car - and end result is a car whose comfort level is simply woeful. On city streets the gearbox whines shrilly, the ride bounces the occupants around the cabin. (Ralliart dealer and motorsport icon George Shepheard suggested to us that the high-speed bump setting on the dampers could be softened a bit to improve the ride without detracting much - if at all - from the handling.) The short ratios means that gearchanges are needed frequently; yes, you can skip a gear on the way up the box, but it doesn't take long to realise that a lot of the engine's apparent tractability comes from its short gearing rather than bucketloads of volumetric efficiency at small throttle openings.
Go a bit faster - a freeway for example - and the ride remains appalling. Nope, this isn't a car where the high-speed ride becomes absorbent and forgiving. To get anything like an acceptable ride you need to pack four people into the cabin, and then the performance and response are well down. On all surfaces the tyre noise is enormous; on some concrete roads with tiny transverse corrugations the whole body can become excited, the resonant booms and howls filling the cabin in a deafening cacophony. Any gravel on the road can be heard machine gunning the inside of the wheel arches, while engine noise is a constant drone - add to that the tyre wail, and you're looking at a car that can give you ringing ears after only a few hours behind the wheel.
But you won't be steering for many hours at a stretch anyway - although the fuel tank is a claimed 50 litres, we typically got in 35 litres after the gauge was showing near empty. With the very best fuel economy that you're ever going to see being a flat ten litres per 100 kilometres, in gentle open road cruising you'll be filling up every 350 kilometres or so. Drive the car hard and you're looking at well over 16 litres disappearing for every hundred kays of (admittedly enormous!) fun. And when you do open the fuel filler all that you'll find is an 'Unleaded Fuel Only' sticker - it contrasts a little with the supplied glovebox list of service stations that sell premium fuel ....
The Evo does have some practical aspects - the rear seats (although tight on head and knee room) are quite acceptable for smallish adults, the boot is large, and the car is easy to drive. Despite their enormous capabilities, the brakes - for example - have excellent feel, even when they are dead cold. The Recaro seats are wonderful, and the steering wheel is a perfect diameter and rim thickness. At speed the aerodynamics work exceptionally well, with the buffeting of passing trucks not moving the car a millimetre. In normal driving the only aspect to be careful of is the tight ground clearance below the front spoiler lip; even the massive rear wing doesn't impose unduly on rear vision - you can easily see past each wing element - although turning to check the blindspots is made more difficult by the high seat wings.
But it's when you stand back from the car - perhaps with an admiring but jealous friend - and start to really look at the Evo that the warm glow fades a little. The rear tacked-on flares don't visually match the new alloy front guards (and it's an eye-opener to open a rear door and peer in at the flares' unfinished undersides); the ghastly white wheels are both impossible to keep clean and look very odd when worn with some body colours; the rear boot panel noticeably flexes when you insert the key; the enormous exhaust tip is connected to a muffler fed only by a contorted, small diameter pipe; the afterthought Clarion CD-radio runs four lousy speakers and an el-cheapo manual aerial; and the lack of interior amenities is startling - there's not even a glovebox light, for Godsakes!
Sure, there are upsides as well. After all, you can admire the alloy rear high-mount adjustable wing with its elevated wicker, the forged alloy suspension arms and those mighty brakes - but quite unlike an Audi or a Porsche or a BMW, it sure doesn't take much of an inspection to find the rough bits.
For this is a car that really only makes sense when it is being driven hard, the driver being pummelled by the Recaro as the Bridgestones fight for every last skerrick of grip, clawing at the road as the small car launches its way out of corners at a faster rate than any car this stretch of road has ever seen.... In that situation, the Evo VI Tommi Makinen makes perfect and absolute sense.
But if you're a person with $80,000 to spend on a compliance special, think hard about how often you drive like that. Not one person who steered our test car had anything less than extreme praise for its performance and handling; but equally not one of those people wanted the car in their garage - and some could have well afforded it...
Don't care that it's harsh, noisy and under-equipped? Rapt in the fact that point-to-point, it is probably quicker than literally any other car on the road?
If performance is your absolute priority, this car is a bargain.
More information: "It's a Blast: Evo Arrives in Oz!"
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